None the Wiser
by Saraa Luna
Summary: A vermin actor separated from his troupe meets a woodlander actor separated from his. Not being fighters, panic ensues when they meet, and both beasts create a plot to slip by their dangerous enemy. It's just unfortunate they chose disguises that are respective opposites... again.
1. Chapter 1

It was a beautiful cheery day within Mossflower woods, warm sun filtering through the branches and making the foliage glow green, the ground soft underfoot, stream gurgling and birds twittering in the scent of earth and the open sky, and Victin Stubfang hated life.

Not all of life, really, he thought, fighting with his loaded satchel and trying to pull the bulging and patched bag's sides back up. But more like the part of life that involved hiking through Mossflower while still being decked out in complete Juska warrior regalia, false bird bone bracelets, pseudo hoop earrings, and painted-on tattoos (with artistic liberty) included. Victin was long since regretting his plucky words to the rest of his troupe— _'I'll catch up with you lot later, go on ahead.'_

Five hours, six rum-shots with a highly questionable wildcat bartender, and one map-refusal later, and Victin Stubfang had successfully lost himself in the middle of the woods better than any concussed woodlander dibbun would've been capable of.

Well, this proves that Vulpez exists outside of Ripfang dressed in a tub-load of dye, stilts, and robes, Victin thought, growling and kicking away another briar patch while fighting with his stuffed bag again, and he _does_ listen in on me sometimes.

The briar that Victin had kicked away swung up as he stepped off it, whipping upwards as he pushed a hanging loop of poison oak aside, and the stoat gave a high-pitched shriek very unfitting of a Juska warrior at where it lashed under his kilt. He scrambled away from the briars with his bag thumping against his back behind him, seams straining with every bounce and seeming fit to burst. Victin had to jerk the kilt and his tail away to keep them from getting stuck in the clingy vines and bushes. He quickly tried to find a clearer route, tail sticking closer between his legs than was necessary.

The stoat wasn't too fond of forest navigation to start with, but he'd honestly thought that the Juska get-up would be the easiest thing to travel in compared to the rest of the costumes he had stuffed in his bag— and since he'd been one in his troupe's rendition of _The Otterly Ridiculous Taggerung_ last night, why not keep wearing it? Yet despite the fact that it was nothing but a patterned kilt, it had snagged on no less than seven bushes and briar tangles while Victin was trying to track his troupe down again, and he'd almost been thrown flat on his face multiple times tripping over it.

If he ended up biting his tongue off when he fell thanks to Oscela's blasted fang extensions and selective packing, Victin thought as he brushed by an oak tree and blinked at the spots of sun in his eyes, he was going to personally throttle the ferretmaid when he got back. Of course, she'd probably applaud him for keeping the fangs in (Victin wasn't going to admit he'd lost the adhesive dissolver between rum shots with that shifty bartender) and then go on a rant when he protested about having no real clothes to change into with whatever tongue had he left.

"It helps keep ya in character!" Oscela often said, gesturing wildly in whatever garish sundress or costume she was in like she was giving a dramatic soliloquy right then and there backstage. She never appreciated it when Victin demanded actual clothes in his satchel for after the play. "Ya never take this seriously enough, Victin! Changin' out of costume ruins the feelin' of bein' yar character an' puts ya right back into bein' just an actor— or pretty actress," she'd add, giving a seductive growl and preening at her face in the mini paw mirror she always kept on paw.

Oscela didn't have the same dark mask on her face that most ferrets did, and she was extremely self-conscious about it, painting herself on a mask with dye and constantly checking on it in her mirror with various narcissist looks. She'd flutter her long eyelashes at her reflection for a moment, then her dreamy expression would disappear as she pocketed the mirror and went right back to being a scolding terror. Costume designers, Victin thought. Always flighty pains in the tail, especially the females.

"When ya break out of character, it ruins it! Ya can't play the same beast as good as ya did the next day when ya've changed outta yar costume an' gone back to bein' _you!_ I put so much into my costumes, Victin, an' ya don't wear them right! Why can't ya stay in character like Marvelo?" she'd suggest.

Marvelo was a broad-chested and passionate grey wharf rat that took his craft seriously to an almost insane degree. He had plenty of old but obvious scars from being a quarry worker for a warlord for years before he'd joined the troupe, and their leader frequently cast him and his imposing build in the roles of villains, which he prepared for weeks in advance. A few seasons ago, the troupe had put on _The Seven Levels of Hellgates._ Marvelo had been cast as Cluny the Scourge. The entire troupe had been on skittish edge over the reborn warlord wandering around their camp, and Ripfang the fox— the troupe's Slagar and special-occasion Vulpez— was terrified of the cooking caravan near his bunk for weeks after a nasty incident involving Marvelo in full costume and a bowl of wood pigeon soup.

"I'd rather not lose my 'ead," Victin would reply, backing out of the tent after giving her one last sour look. "I'm not preparin' for insanity this play. Tell you what, though, I'll consider it when I get stuck playin' Folgrim the Mad; he an' Marvelo have _plenty_ in common."

He'd get no reply to his snippy comment. By then, Oscela would be preening in the mirror again. She almost always won whether she spoke of it or not, except on the days when Victin snuck in his own casual clothes into his costume bag.

Trust fate that he'd get lost in the woods on one of the days he decided to let Oscela get her way about no regular clothes, Victin thought, the stoat kicking aside a rock in foul temper. It disappeared into a nearby bush with a crash of limbs, and the loud rustling of bushes in response further out in the woods made Victin give a un-Juska-like flinch as he immediately froze and hunkered down with wide eyes. That had been too loud to be an echo. His jewelry jangled against his fur, and the large prop sword hanging from his waist smacked into his shins along with his bag. Victin was too preoccupied with staring out into the dense forest with his fur on end to give his usual swear of pain.

Was somebeast else out there? Was there a path nearby? Oh Hellgates, there better not be any adders or robbers out here, Victin thought, nervously groping at his prop sword's hilt. The blade was wood covered in a fragile sheet of metal, and it was just as much a real sword as Victin Stubfang was a Juska warrior. He could strut and flash the bravado like one, Victin thought, slowly rising to his feet after craning his neck and seeing nothing, but fighting was something else entirely. He'd barely learned the basics of handling a danger in his village and had slit less than five throats in his entire life. Close combat would result in him lying six-feet-under more thoroughly than Drakan the Great's acting career and life after he'd gone solo and tried preforming in front of a wolverine.

There was more rustling further out in the woods, but the birds still continued their singing and twittering instead of going quiet. Whoever was out there wasn't an adder with those giant curved needle-like teeth— Victin shook his head to get rid of his unwelcome thoughts, shuddering at the image of those sharp points. He shuddered before getting to his feet, pulling his satchel strap over his shoulder again and balancing the giant bag's mass against his back. The dye tattoos probably looked like distorted blobs by now with all the rubbing the satchel had done against them, Victin thought, stoat straightening up.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and imagining the anticipatory whispers of the audience behind the curtain before it opened— their quarrels and weapons being sheathed— the last minute adjustments of his fellow performers around him as they took their places on whatever stage they'd found and made for themselves. The uncomfortable ache of the fang extensions and clutter of the bone jewelry faded. Victin puffed up his chest and drew back his shoulders with a rough cockiness alien to the untrained stoat. His eyes opened to reveal another beast entirely, one that looked over the thick trees with a practiced gaze and scanned for enemies and opportunities.

A sneer crossed the Juska warrior's face as he listened to the clumsy movements of his prey so nearby. The bone loops that hung from the stoat's ears didn't so much as give a ripple of movement as he began to stride forward, one paw gripping his sword hilt and the other holding the bag slung over his shoulder. He reveled in the feeling of the ghostly forms of the tattoos moving over his hardened back and flicked his claws against several notches in his sword hilt. He licked his lips, still sneering. Perhaps he'd get to add to his notches and supply bag if the poor mucker up ahead had some valuables on him… especially if he was a woodlander.

Underneath the skin of the Juska striding through the forest without caring about the briars and twigs ripping at his fur and kilt, Victin the actor stoat's heart beat faster. He hadn't the faintest idea what or who was up ahead, but he hoped they were intimidated enough by a Juska to back off. His character grinned toothily with his impressive fangs and began glorying in the idea of a fight and obtaining loot. Victin tried not to bite his tongue with the extensions or swear when thorns nipped his legs and prayed to all Hellgates that he wouldn't get killed.

The Juskan warrior with the fluttering heart in his chest headed towards the noises up ahead.

* * *

The path was clear and not overgrown by flowering weeds like most of the trails through deep Mossflower, the luscious trees leaned towards each other enough to form a rich and varied green canopy with a bright blue jagged line of sky between their branches, the whole setting was beautiful enough in its own right to make a poetical beast cry, and Tarquin Fleetfoot wasn't paying attention to any of it.

The sky might've been a pretty shade of blue, but it was no blinking slice of blueberry pie or a map to tell him how to get back to his company, Tarquin thought, resisting the urge to unsling the sack hanging over his shoulder and eat up the last crumb of rations he had. It was probably better to save it with the way things were going; he'd probably starve before getting back to the troupe before they took off without him. The hare's stomach rumbled at the thought, and he rubbed it through his stiff uniform and sadly stared at the crisp cufflinks on his wrists.

Oh, the complete tragedy of a hare starving to death in the plentiful land of Mossflower. It was something they'd probably make a bally play out of with three acts and a long and dramatic title to bring out the irony, Tarquin thought wryly. Perhaps something like '_The Withholding of the Plentiful Feast' _or _'Fate Favors All But the Hungered Hare' _or— Tarquin's current personal favorite— '_The Highly Ironic and Cruel Death of Tarquin the Hare Thanks to Keelstrip the Otter Not Giving Him the Right Map Back to the Company's Campsite In Case of Separation.'_

In the middle of all his musings, the military jacket itched against Tarquin's shoulders, and one side with a haphazardly popped collar rubbed against his neck.

"I swear on the bally shores of Salamandastron, this blinkin' jacket is worse than a whole swarm of bloodsuckers," Tarquin muttered to himself, pulling the collar away from his neck with one paw. There was a jangle of bright metals on the chest pockets that caught the light and glowed from where they dangled on various colored ribbons that supposedly represented some actual Long Patrol medals of honor.

Tarquin wouldn't know. He'd forgotten just about every metal identification class he'd ever taken seasons ago, if he'd even learned them to start with. The hare wasn't sure that the lessons of his parents and military instructors had exactly stuck with him, since he'd ended up nodding in dull agreement with whatever Kenna had said as the shrew had pinned the fake metals to his coat. But if round disks from a melted-down sword blade attached to colorful ribbon were enough to look like the real thing, Tarquin thought, then that was enough for him.

"This one represents showing bravery in the face of the enemy," Kenna had said, keeping a circular silver metal with a purplish blue ribbon hovering over the jacket until she'd found the precise place to stick it. Tarquin had hummed, standing still as the shrewmaid balanced on her three-legged stool to reach where she needed to.

"Mmmhm."

"This one represents being heavily wounded in line of duty, but still remaining behind to aid fellow patrollers."

"Spot on, wot."

The shrewmaid had moved to another medal in her pocket and held up a black ribbon. "This one represents the successful completion of mission without any causalities."

"I'm familiar with that one. I earned three of them in one day; they're all at home, though. Bloomin' wish I brought them with me."

Kenna paused in placing the long black ribbon on Tarquin's chest, looking up slowly and giving the hare a significant look as she lifted the ribbon for him to see.

"Tarquin, this ribbon means you _died_ in line of duty," Kenna said flatly. She still stared at Tarquin's face as he looked down at her, waiting for him to catch on. "It's awarded post-mortem."

Tarquin had still kept a straight face. "That's quite alright, Kenna. I've been mistaken for bein' dead more than once, especially after fillin' at my belly at dinner, wot— OW!"

Kenna was far more serious about identifying medals than he was, Tarquin thought, remembering the talk about how he at least needed to remember Long Patrol slang and recognize a few medals if he was going to be the general in _Saber and Bloodwrath._ Seeing he died horribly halfway through the second act via false rapier through the stomach the next night when the play took off, he really wasn't concerned with that. The gasping and shrieking audience hadn't been either if the fainting mouse in the front row was anything to go by. There was nothing quite like a smashed bag of red dye splattering over the stage to get the crowd going, whether with tears or out the nearest door.

The hare studied a few smooth pebbles on the road before adjusting his jacket collar again, trying not to groan about the absolute pressed stiffness of the whole Long Patrol outfit he was in. The coat was bad enough, summoning memories of barked orders in training camp before he was old enough to skip out, but the shoulder pads underneath it were even worse. Trust him to get separated from the troupe on accident when he was stuck wearing one of the most uptight costumes, Tarquin thought. Bartholo had believed he wasn't imposing enough to play the role of the general on his own, and so after some bantering with Kenna and Tarquin, the squirrel company leader had gotten his way.

Tarquin had been outfitted with a monocle and shoulder pads on top of the uniform to further complete the picture of a valiant general, and he'd practiced walking in military fashion again before taking to the stage and being killed by Keelstrip dressed up as a weasel assassin. The enthusiastic dark-furred otter was one of the only flexible and long-bodied stagepaws the company possessed, and as a result, he was often stuck playing the role of any vermin too tall and lengthy for any of the other actors— meaning any large weasels, stoats, pine martens, or ferrets. If anybeast was booed frequently for their character's appearance, it was river otter actor turned any mustelid vermin.

That wasn't to say that Keelstrip didn't enjoy it, perhaps too much. He'd gotten a bit carried away on the stage night when the time to assassinate Tarquin had come, feasting on the attention being thrown his way from the shocked and enraptured audience, and with a snarl on his face twisted enough to make any real vermin back off in a hurry, he'd driven the wooden rapier into Tarquin's stomach hard enough to make several of the crowd scream. Tarquin had found no trouble realistically gasping on the floor in pain as he bled out, though he'd had to hold back an undignified wheeze or two. Keelstrip had said sorry backstage after the encore. 'I'm sorry for killin' ye so hard' was one of the most interesting apologies Tarquin had ever gotten.

The hare was debating on whether or not to pull out the piece of paper in his satchel that was covered in Keelstrip's indefinable scribbles— perhaps that thick squiggly line crossing the other two crooked less-thick squiggly lines was really a certain path or representing _something_— when there was loud rustle of branches and shaking limbs nearby right from the woods. Tarquin froze in his place before immediately pulling his sack from over his shoulder and holding it like a mace.

"So not only I am hungry and lost, I also may be about to be attacked while I'm wieldin' a sack of costumes," Tarquin muttered to himself, trying to ignore the way his ears were suddenly twitching and a small pit of nervousness was filling his belly at the thought of being assaulted. Marauding vermin or opportunist beasts in general weren't exactly rare in Mossflower. The forest around him had gone oddly quiet again. The hare resisted the urge to give a laugh he had a feeling would come out high-pitched. "My luck jolly well keeps gettin' better and better, wot."

When there was no more loud noises, Tarquin swallowed down his heavily beating heart and lowered his sack. He couldn't see anybeast up ahead on the path as it curved around the trees like a flattened brown snake, and the hare had a sinking suspicion that he wasn't going to unless they saw him first. Why had he come out here unarmed, again? Or gotten separated from the company? Or thought not eating a giant breakfast was a good idea? (That was _never_ a good idea.)

He might've been able to tolerate fake blood, Tarquin thought, edging forward on the path, but real blood was something else entirely. It unlocked a pit of deep nausea in his guts when he focused on it too long, something he had discovered after staring a corsair ferret he'd killed in his Salamandastron training days and then promptly throwing up on the feet of his commanding officer when he stopped by to check on him. No one in the Fleetfoot family had been able to look that officer in the eyes ever since. Actually, since Tarquin had barely been able to look him in the face before throwing up on his paws, he didn't consider it a great loss. Just the topping card on that which was the destruction of his entire future military career.

"Get yourself together, bucko," Tarquin said, shaking off the memories and forcing his body to into a strict military stance. He slung the bag back over his shoulder, taking a deep breath and snapping to attention.

He could do this, Tarquin thought, straightening his jacket collar and fishing the prop monocle out of one its pockets. He perched it against his face in its proper position, clearing his throat of all blockage like before a long delivery on the stage. His Long Patrol career had ended before it'd started in a not-so-glorious spew of retch and a string of ridiculous rule infractions before then, but nobeast out here besides him needed to know that. In fact, they'd probably turn tail and run or at least keep their distance from a hare general who was just taking a stroll by himself, Tarquin thought. There would be no fighting or blood involved. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration before molding his face into the same stoic and commanding expression playing the general's character demanded. His body followed afterwards, mind clicking into the role, and Tarquin Fleetfoot faded away without a peep.

The hare general marched down the small road in Mossflower, unarmed but still alert and poised. He held himself regally as he glanced at the surrounding trees from behind his monocle, taking in which strategic positions could be assumed against him from the forest. Every one of his steps was a snapping military walk honed by seasons of experience. His broad shoulders carried his uniform with the air of a beast who knew exactly how much importance they possessed. The hare general continued down the path without a pause. It was unlikely that the beast out there would take action against him, but if so, then they'd better be prepared to receive more blood and vinegar than they wanted.

Buried below the half-façade of military steps and pure confidence, Tarquin Fleetfoot the hare actor tried to dismiss his fears of what he'd run into and prepare himself for the worst at the same time. He was no pessimist, but with the way his luck was going lately, Tarquin wouldn't be surprised if a two headed lizard raised its ugly snouts around the bend. He just hoped it would recognize what a medal was before it had to pick out from between its teeth. His character went on with the same almost casual composure all high-ranking Long Patrol generals seemed to have and adjusted his monocle. Tarquin fought the squirming worms inside him the entire way and found himself wishing for one good scone in his bag, just in case.

The hare general with impatience burning in him continued down the path towards the noises.


	2. Chapter 2

The simple dirt path through the woods seemed a lot less open and friendly when he was doing a military march down it, Tarquin thought. He cleared his throat and pushed his monocle further up his face, flicking a finger against the false gold chain. The hare didn't miss a beat of his marching. No character breaking was allowed— especially not with something right around the blinking corner, Tarquin thought, wanting to drop the hare general's stern face and go back to normal walking. His footpaws moved up and down in the monotonous Long Patrol stomp he'd had drilled into his brain all cubhood.

Left! Left, right, left. Left! Left, right, left…

Tarquin snuck a glance from the corners of his eyes as he began to approach the curve in the path where all the unnerving shaking and cracking noises had been coming from. A thick clump of bushes hugged both of the path's sides, everything underneath the broad, overarching branches of leafy oak trees. The whole thing was like a natural shady stage and curtain, Tarquin thought. From the way the bushes looked, they probably grew into a briar patch up ahead and swallowed the rest of the path up. There'd be no clear ground for a long time even if the path still existed. The hare resisted the urge to put his paw over his heart and start quoting off the most dramatic plays he could think of that involved characters being devoured or meeting their unwilling ends in the woods.

Oh, that's bally _perfect_, he thought. Tarquin unslung his bag from his shoulders while he was still marching. He pulled free a false wooden rapier that was tangled amongst the other costumes. Bartholo would've normally had a fit about him beating things besides fellow actors with stage props— though the squirrel seemed to have no objection whenever Keelstrip began to bounce Tarquin around like the world's largest hare dust rag; how did he always end up in a role that inevitably fought or got killed by the otter anyway?— but this false rapier had enough metal coating chipped off it to where it didn't matter any longer. Looking at the crack down the middle, Tarquin was pretty sure it was the one their juggling vole Yosef had accidentally nailed Keelstrip between the eyes with. That otter had a skull like a stinking rock.

Bartholo could get angry, but he wasn't going to be coming back to the camp with some extra thorns in his stubby tail all for the sake of protecting a broken stage rapier, Tarquin thought with a burst of defiance. He had enough of landing rear-first in briar patches after a drunken hedgehog had tossed him into one right off the stage one performance night. That had bloody _hurt. _

The hare jerked his sack shut and threw it over his shoulder before giving a slightly harder flourish with the rapier blade than he needed to. He was discovering he hadn't quite gotten over his animosity towards briars as a prick of joy filled his chest at the thought of beating them down. Blinking rear-sticking weeds! The previous noises in the forest were forgotten as Tarquin advanced menacingly on the plants blocking his way, tilting the weapon in his paw like it actually had a blade instead of a blunted edge a shrewwife couldn't cut cheese with.

"Come on at me, you floppish and flounderin' excuse for a salad," Tarquin growled, still not entirely breaking character. To the Dark Forest with it; he'd already decided to declare war on a bunch of prickly bushes, why not throw some dramatic monolog on top? "I'll be eatin' your yellow-bellied leafy cubs for lunch, wot!"

Tarquin sidestepped in an effort to be fancy, imagination egging him on to ham it up further. His foot accidentally slipped right into a deep little pothole in the road, causing the hare to spin around towards the rest of the forest to avoid to twisting his ankle. His cracked wooden rapier was still raised and more hare curses on his tongue as he spun around, and that was exactly when he came face-to-face with Victin Stubfang coming out of the bushes.

* * *

Breaking character in the middle of a performance wasn't good. Breaking your nose was even worse.

"I. GODDAMN. _HATE._ THIS. KILT," Victin ground out, words an angry hiss under his breath. One of his paws was now clutching to his throbbing nose, which had slammed straight into a protruding tree root on the ground after Victin had finished tripping over the first one and getting his legs tangled in briars (courtesy of the kilt).

He was lucky that Oscela's fang extensions hadn't bitten a hole through his lip in the process, Victin thought, still clutching his nose and shoving away the clingy and draping vines with a viciousness that could've almost passed for a Juska. The bone bracelets he wore jerked and bounced as the weeds tried to insistently pull them off his wrists like the obnoxious weasel brat who'd gotten backstage before Marvelo had tossed him back to his parents. Victin was half thinking the blasted trees were going to reach down and start plucking at his earrings.

It was no bloody wonder nobeast ever saw the Juska fighting in close forest quarters, Victin thought, fuming as he kept heading in his chosen direction. They'd lose their reputation as tough warriors if they were too busy trying to keep their pants up or jewelry on in the middle of a brawl. He made a mental note to punch Ripfang in the face when he got back to make himself feel better. The fox was the one who'd let him stay out in that tavern and delivered the message to the rest of the troupe that he would be just fine getting back later; this trudging over brush piles and wading through thorns was indirectly his scumsucking fault.

The stoat gingerly peeled his fingers from his nose when he didn't feel any more major throbs of pain. He sniffed, staring down his muzzle at it. On the pain levels which went from 'Ach, thorn in my foot' to 'HELP ME THERE'S A GODDAMN RAT EATING MY LEGS' Victin decided it was on par with getting hit in the face with a decently-aimed wooden tankard. It hurt, but it definitely wasn't broken, the stoat thought. The caution for his surroundings emerged again when he saw a glow of light between the trees nearby, eating up a portion of the permanent dusk Mossflower held in some parts of its woods and bringing in day. The path and whatever had been rustling loudly earlier had to be close.

All of his concerns vanished when Victin's foot went thudding right into a rock hidden by a patch of thorns. A strangled yelp and curse burst from his mouth as he lifted his hurt foot and tried to grab his aching toes, keeping up an awkward jump and dance as he also tried to desperately keep his kilt down and more sensitive spots hidden from the briars. It was pure luck that he went stumbling out of the briar patch, spitting low curses on everything and everyone he could think of, Oscela included. He'd show that smirking ferretmaid how _in character_ he was when he got back to the troupe—

Right around when he thought he was free of the briars and felt actual less stagnant air and sun striping the ground nearby, Victin saw a blur of motion in the road and heard some growled words. He stopped short just as he almost broke free of the forest, and the startled, battered, and angry stoat stomped right down on the largest (and final) tendril of briars that had sneakily grown out to the path's flanking bushes. Fur standing on end, fingers and claws contracting with surprised pain, and bone jewelry shaking, Victin gave an unholy shriek and snarl of pain just as he met Tarquin Fleetpaw.

* * *

For around two seconds, both beasts stared at each other, registering what was apparently peeking out of the bushes and greeting them on the path: a fully armed, bone-bejeweled and tattoo-decorated Juska warrior with bared fangs, and a uniform-wearing and medal-covered Long Patrol general with a rapier out and waiting.

Victin and Tarquin inwardly screamed.

Outwardly, Victin did the first thing he could think of when confronted with a Long Patrol general while he had a briar vine stuck up his foot and now wrapped around his ankle— he tried to cut off what was pinning him to escape. The stoat's paw flew down to his sword hilt, the fear and inward scream pounding through his chest making him forget that a play prop wouldn't slice through a twig. He yanked the sword out and swung in it an arc, ready to cut off _anything_ to get away from what was in front of him, only for momentum and his slipping claws to send the sword hurling right towards Tarquin's face instead. His accidental aim was beautiful.

Tarquin, most of whose head was clouded by pure terror and mental screaming at the beast in front of him while he apologized to his mother for choosing this lifestyle, did what came naturally— he bolted. Or tried to. The instant he took off, his foot still caught in the tight pothole whipped him around like loaded sling with a burst of pain and sent him bending over like a grass blade in a storm. Victin's thrown blade missed him by a tuft of fur and grazed over the tip of his nose. Tarquin's eyes bugged as he choked back a scream at the blade spinning past his face. His trapped ankle jerked him back up into the exact same standing position he'd started from right after the sword passed and flew into the opposite bushes.

Thoroughly terrified, the hare then realized he was holding his broken false rapier at the same time a panicking Victin did.

Normally, a real rapier was wielded with elegant and sweeping grace, flashing through the air and cutting thin crescents and jabs of red into the opponent with a silver sweep of metal. The horrified Tarquin used his fake one like a bat and brought it down on Victin with all the finesse of a crow beating an overripe fruit.

Victin, who'd just gotten his foot off the briar line with his fur still on end, gave a strangled growl of pain the same time Tarquin grunted. To each other, it sounded like an angry and raw animalistic growl and the beginning of a battle cry. To themselves, they sounded like their voices had gotten higher by several wavering pitches.

Fear-laced adrenaline running through him, Victin reacted reflexively and backhanded the blade away— which Tarquin had swung with the flat instead of the edge pointed at him— the same time he accidentally fell forward. Tarquin's strength infused blow, which would have normally been enough to knock somebeast out, was deflected with a seeming effortlessness thanks to both Victin's strength and unintentionally thrown-in weight. The rapier went spinning up as the stoat caught his balance by pure luck much the same way Tarquin had stood back upright earlier. He also accidentally caught Tarquin's blade.

For a frozen second, they stared at each other.

_He's toying with me and he's going to kill me with his bare paws_, Victin thought, looking at the valiantly posed and unarmed Tarquin who had his arms uncaringly down by his sides.

_He's strong enough to block me like nothing and he's going to beat me to death_, Tarquin thought, looking at the way Victin stood posed with his wooden rapier nonchalantly held in both his paws like a stick.

Both beasts stood unmoving for another second before they both screamed and took off in the opposite directions.


	3. Chapter 3

If Victin had thought that the briars were bad before, he was now believing that they were Hellgates incarnate in the form of clingy and thorn-ridden plants— not only because they'd scratched his legs raw and tried to slap up underneath his kilt, but because they'd almost gotten him stuck in front of an armed hare general.

Far away from the path and underneath a slumping maple tree, a gasping Victin Stubfang lay across the ground with his bag thrown out beside him, trying to catch his breath. His legs were covered in hundreds of new cuts, his kilt was beginning to run in a corner, and his fang extensions had been loosened by a face-first crash into a whippy ash tree, because nature apparently hated him. But Fate hated him more, he thought, struggling upright and shakily taking inventory of his bone jewelry props, because it had led him straight to Long Patrol officer.

Victin tried to keep his erratic breathing down as he thought of crashing into the hare again, clutching his chest and licking his lips with unease. His eyes darted to the left and right out of nervousness, the stoat half expecting the general to come crashing out of the trees with a rapier raised and a roared 'EULUIA!' on his lips. At least, he would've by now, Victin thought, if _he_ hadn't unintentionally caught the damn rapier and then thrown it over his shoulders when he made a run for it.

The vermin curled up in a ball to massage his bleeding and stubbed foot, giving a groan and dropping his forehead onto his knee when he went over what had happened. One second he was strutting out for the nearest path, and then the other he was stomping on the biggest briar coil in all of Mossflower and nearly colliding face-to-face with a hare general while dressed up as a Juska— before accidentally throwing a stage prop sword in his face.

Victin had been planning to lift his head to survey the damage done to the kilt and his overstuffed satchel, but at that thought, he gave another groan that was close to a sob and kept his head down. Of all the things to do, out of _every_ path he could've taken to get himself out of the situation, the first thing he'd done was flounder like a novice actor thrown on the stage or a young malebeast unbuttoning a female's dress for the first time, and promptly chucked a sword at one of the most dangerous enemies to vermin in all of Mossflower. A _wooden_ sword.

If Vulpez didn't have him scribbled down on the priority list for Hellgates, Victin bet he was doing so now.

He should congratulate himself on getting put in the 'destined for rapid death' group so quickly, Victin thought, slapping his paw up on the part of his face not buried in his knee. The stoat shuddered when he thought of how swiftly the hare had dodged the sword and stood back up like it was nothing. Salamandastron knew how to churn out the fighters, alright. Add in that the general had watched him calmly like he was a stupid cub after he'd taken his rapier— obviously waiting for the chance to dismantle him with his own paws— and Victin just wanted to crawl all the way back to the shifty wildcat's bar and order as many rum shots as he could take, the more questionable the alcohol content the better.

Victin finally managed to drag his paw off his face, claws raking over his fur slowly, and the stoat lifted his head to take in his surroundings. He was collapsed under slumped maple that was a tree's equivalent of a hunchback, trunk bowed down but forming a grotesque lump where it curved back up into the air. The briars other than those stuck in Victin's kilt and legs were scarce, being devoured by peppy patches of bright wildflowers that seemed just happy to be there watching an inevitably doomed stoat pick the thorns out of his fur, and they encircled a balding grassy clearing like an off-kilter halo. The sun filtered down through the leaves above in rays that varied from golden to a dusty yellow.

Everything looked so much like the setting of all the sappy romance plays Oscela ate up in her spare time (and failed to convince the troupe to perform, even under threat of frying pan assault) that Victin almost laughed. All it needed was for two stupidly shortsighted young lovers with smoldering eyes and heaving chests to come wandering in and begin breathily monologing to each other before their equally stupid parents trotted in later and slaughtered them both, preferably with more monologing, then followed by lots of 'falling upon their wretched knees and wailing to thy heavens.'

While that probably wasn't going to happen, Victin thought, jerking over his heavy satchel and halfheartedly peeping at its contents, the hill was definitely going to get its quota of dead beasts on it filled once the hare finished tracking him down. The normal officers could scrounge out an unfortunate vermin and follow their hour old footprints through a swamp. The general had probably taken out a whole stinking corsair ship by himself and smelled them out like a bloody pike, Victin thought miserably, giving a rough laugh as he poked at one of his costumes. All those metals on his jacket and broad shoulders meant something. Victin might've just as well thrown himself in front of a badgerlord and gotten his death over with.

Victin found himself staring at the visible sliver of a costume sleeve in the bag in the middle of all his death contemplating. He felt a small spot of hope slowly rising up in his chest. Well, the hare wouldn't be able to track and kill him if he couldn't recognize him when he found him, could he? They might be damn good at tracking vermin, but all it took was one costume and adjustment of movements, and he wasn't a vermin anymore. And costumes were the one thing he had a lot of.

He knelt down and emptied out his bag, pawing apart the folded clothes and separating them over the sunny ground to get his full inventory. Oscela would be shrieking at the top of her lungs if she saw how her precious outfits were being treated now, Victin thought as he tossed a horde captain armband aside. But since part of his situation was her fault, this would be him indulging his revenge without any worries about being chewed out later. Ripfang had better be willing to share his grog when Victin got back. He'd need it.

After spotting a few good candidates for disguise and eliminating all that looked dangerous or incriminating— any outfits, jewelry, or accessories, that hinted at horde association, madness, shiftiness, or extortion (Victin tossed aside at least two embroidered assassin and archer hoods, a northern berserker cloak made of roughed dirty cloth to resemble fur, and the multi-pocketed pants he'd worn as a thieving magician during _The Merchant of Castle Riftguard_)— the stoat quickly went to stripping himself down of all Juska jewelry. The bone bracelets and white curved earrings rained down into a little clattering pile.

Victin threw his empty sword sheath back into the satchel and tried to pry the fang extensions from his mouth, but when they didn't come free after much wiggling and muffled swearing, he pulled his paw out of his mouth and spat to clear the nasty taste out. How were those scumsucking extensions still clinging inside his mouth after he'd slammed his muzzle into part of a tree twice? They felt like bloody sharpened rocks clinging to his teeth, even though they were just whittled bird bone.

Most woodlanders except otters didn't exactly have fangs, Victin thought, grimacing as he pulled his kilt off and jerked the most neutral pair of pants he could find on. He'd probably have to keep his mouth shut or say he had a serious medical condition— one that spontaneously caused fangs to grow for no apparent reason. No, that didn't sound suspicious at all. But he'd have to deal with it since it was one of the better excuses he had; he wasn't pretending to be mute ever again since that incident with the grey fox in the audience front that had turned out to have a secret fear of mimes or anything distantly related to them. Victin had ached in places he didn't even know existed before Marvelo managed to kick the screaming vulpine off him. So much for hordebeasts appreciating _The Outcast Crew_ or ever playing a mute court performer again; he'd still had shrieks of "THE MIMES!" echoing in his ears hours later.

The stoat cheered himself up by giving the discarded Juska kilt a vicious kick and vowing to 'accidentally' drop it into the troupe bonfire when he got back.

He tried to twist his head around to look at the state of the painted tattoos on his back, but all that yielded was a blurry glance of red intertwining lines and his tail. Victin frowned before he snorted and stretched his neck, popping it and his knuckles as he worked out the kinks in his body. The dye tattoos should be coverable via shirt, and there was at least one nice jacket he had that could pass as casual hare wear. He'd never be able to mimic their body quite right— he was a stoat, for crying out loud— but it was all in the movements and attitude. As long as he didn't draw any attention to his long flexible neck or waist and hunkered down just a little, it'd work.

Victin afforded himself a small grin when he saw the hat he was looking for buried underneath a messenger tunic. He pulled it out, flipping it over in his paws and brushing off the fake ears that popped from each side. The hat was a long peaked cap colored a dull brown with the texture of burlap. It had looked rather smart at one point, but all dignity to it had been absolutely destroyed for anybeast but an actor after someone had anchored two springy and long ears to the sides. Get the right cloth weave and a little bit of milkweed fluff here and there, throw it all together on some wire, and done. Hare ears.

The cap was a bit squashed after living at the bottom of Victin's bag for a season or two, and one false ear was ridiculously crooked while neither them wanted to stand up properly, but Victin would be (literally) damned if he couldn't spout off some tripe about being chewed on by a ferret or two when he was a little leveret. Working as an actor for ten seasons hadn't been for nothing.

That or the 'medical condition' excuse was looking quite handy again.

If it saved him from the hare general's rapier, he thought as he set the cap on his head and tucked his own ears in, tilting the peaked brim down over his face in a rakish yet concealing manner, he'd even make up a sob story about being an orphan and forced to housekeep for seasons for a whole family of stinking snowy owls with a single broom. Whatever it took.

Finding the nice coat Victin suspected himself of possessing somewhere in his piles of satchel contents was easy, but when he slipped it on and tried to button it, it didn't take long to remind him why he always forgot about it. The stoat groaned in exasperation as he stared down at the stretched and sagging front too large for his chest. A butterfly nearby took the opportunity to alight on his clothes before mockingly fluttering off into the bright flower patches nearby, opening and folding its yellow wings with insect smugness.

Correction, Victin thought, staring down at the stretched material in his paws, it wasn't a nice coat. It _had_ been a nice coat. At least, until a distracted Marvelo had grabbed the nearest thing in the blacked out costume caravan one night and tried to fit his hulking wharf rat form into a coat specifically tailored for the slender ribs and waist of a mustelid. The coat, being one of the only decent clothes Victin ever recalled wearing off stage, had shown its good cloth quality in stretching irreparably instead of tearing irreparably. The stoat was pretty sure he'd been drunk somewhere at the time the accident had happened, so he constantly kept forgetting his good costume coat didn't exist. At least that had been some great rum, Victin thought.

Fortunately, the problem was resolved when Victin's eye was caught by the wadded-up red scarf that had sparked the idea of disguising himself to start with. He buttoned the coat and stuffed it down through the collar down to the floppy belly section, rearranging it the best he could to look natural. The slightly bulgy and offset result made it look he was a hare with a tumor or unbalanced ale gut, Victin thought, staring down at his now much (lumpier) rounder belly, but since he wasn't dressing up as a high-class beast and hares weren't that handsome to start with, who cared?

Another rustling through a pile of costumes and thinking of the expression on Oscela's face when he found what he wanted and shoved the other outfits aside, and Victin had found the false hare and rabbit tail. It was built up from stringy cotton, milkweed, and carefully plucked and fluffed cloth of some other kind just like the ears that went with it, looking like a grotesque and ridiculous flower while it was unattached to anything.

Victin poked at it in dark amusement before he tied his own long tail around his waist with a basic securing wrap, something that all of the troupe members except the one weasel with the chopped-off tail used to make it easier to slip into cross-species roles. A few more seconds gave him the time to tie on the false hare tail, and the stoat easily pulled the jacket over the wrap and string. His transformation into an awkward, homely hare— but a hare nevertheless— was complete the instant he cleared his throat and set off to pick up his strewn about costumes with a strut worthy of any pompous Salamandastron resident.

He'd like to see that bloody hare general find him _now_, Victin thought gleefully, stuffing the last bit of Juska jewelry into the bag as he left the bent maple tree and sun-dappled clearing for the darker woods. The stoat stepped over the big patches of surrounding weeds and wildflowers to leave them swaying in their deep green and color-spotted groups. They could remain here. _He,_ on the other paw, was getting the Hell out, and no hare or Juska kilt was going to stop him.

Sorry, general, Victin told himself, practicing a hare accent in his head as he picked his way through the forest again, there's been no Juska warrior around here, wot! Or any vermin at all, wot! So you can just bally leave, wot wot!

Feeling much smugger than he should have, Victin set a course for the path again, dodging a bent tree limb and sniffing the air when a stray leaf got underneath his cap and tickled his sore nose. He'd heard running water nearby before the whole general disaster, the sound being one of the things that had kept drawing him towards the path. The troupe always preferred to follow streams or rivers for their traveling paths since it brought in extra revenue from thirsty travelers and water rat crews. This time should be no different.

An hour of forest and briar traveling later, and he was still feeling hopeful as no hare generals popped forth from the trees and his destination neared. Victin's strut wasn't so false anymore as the stoat pushed aside a clingy fern, studying the various vines and bushes that were scattered throughout Mossflower's trees. It was dark underneath the shade of the thousands leaves, their undersides glowing a rainbow of different greens and highlighting the veins through them as they blocked the merciless high sun.

Underneath the kingdom of the leaves and birds hanging above, the ground around the trees was kinder on paws, lacking the harsh layer of thorns that Victin had been sampling before. The gurgle and splashing of running water was growing louder even in his tucked away ears (along with the annoying whistling of some off-key bird up ahead) and Victin couldn't have cared less about the latter at the moment. If the musically-impaired bird wanted to sing, why not let it?

The disguised stoat was practically floating on the fumes of hope and relief of never having to see the hare general once more. There was a spring in his step as he adjusted his jacket, happily pulled back one hanging branch that was blocking his view, and stepped out into the clearing up ahead at the exact moment Tarquin Fleetpaw did. Again.

* * *

There were many times in life where hyperventilating and panic weren't acceptable. For instance, like when one went up on the stage for the first time then began freezing up and choking on the middle of their lines while the troupe was relying on them, or when the horrified shrewmaid who was usually the strong costume designer turned her back after a bad tavern performance night and begged for somebeast to '_please please get this squashed spider and strawberry tart off me oh gods.'_ Neither of those situations were places to panic or hyperventilate.

After crashing straight into a snarling Juska warrior, almost getting killed, barely managing to escape by leaping over briar bushes while screaming the whole time, then tripping and rolling down a hill before landing on a costume-filled bag and crawling behind a tree with a heaving chest, it was the perfect time to panic.

"You are goin' to _die,_ Tarquin," Tarquin blubbered to himself, hare's eyes wide as he rocked back forth in a fetal position with his bag crushed against his chest, "you are goin' to die and it will be bally _terrible._"

Oh pikesteeth, Tarquin thought, still swaying back and forth and dangerously close to whimpering, his father had been right. Not about him being a ridiculous failure wasting his small amount of talents by hopping around on a bally stage, but about 'part of the Long Patrol followin' you wherever you go, wot.' Every hare in Salamandastron had the uncanny ability to run into the largest amount of armed vermin possible for the situation, finding battalions of corsairs lurking behind the bushes even when they just went to get a jolly cup of tea. And now, even _seasons_ after he'd left the Long Patrol, Tarquin thought, giving a high-pitched near-sob and burying his face in his sack, he was still the bloody biggest dangerous vermin magnet in the whole of his troupe and Mossflower.

"I just wanted to go HOME," Tarquin burst out, jerking his head off the sack and wildly throwing his arms up in the air as he yelled at the forest and sky, "is that so bally _hard_ to let me do? It's not 'recevin' just desserts' or dramatic irony when I DIDN'T BLINKIN' DO ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE TO DESERVE IT!" he shrieked.

His cry drove several squawking birds out of the nearby trees as they clumsily took flight, startled by the outburst and dropping a few feathers to drift down to the ground. Tarquin yelped and shrank back as one shot past him, covering his head to shield it from the fluttering form. When he peeked from between his arms, it was gone, headed up into the fragments of blue sky visible from the layers of crossing limbs and clumps of leaves. It was also probably very offended, Tarquin thought, lowering his protective arms from his head. It'd be ranting to its flock about an insane and insensitive hare for seasons after this.

"Congratulations, bucko," he muttered to himself, calmer after the birds had fled and letting his shoulders warily relax, "you probably just made a whole generation of robins think hares are all crazy, wot. You should've just stripped your clothes off and started quotin' _Woe Upon My Hedgehog._ It'd have done the same thing, and least somebeast would've gotten a show before your painful, untimely death."

At the thought of the fate that awaited him when the enraged Juska finished tracking him down, Tarquin sighed and crossed his arms over his knees, letting his forehead drop against them in sudden exhaustion. How had things gone south so quickly? All he'd wanted was to bluff his way out of any trouble and go back to the troupe; was that so wrong? And yet he'd ended up harassing a fully armed Juska warrior— one of the most dangerous, skilled, and ruthless things in all of Mossflower to woodlanders or any living thing, full stop— with a broken fake rapier that he'd tried to beat it over the head with.

_He had tried to bludgeon a Juska warrior with a wooden stage prop._

Tarquin had to struggle not to give a small sob.

Of course, he thought, miserably pulling his face out of his crossed arms and setting his chin on them instead, now the beast was coming after him. The hare watched a few distant butterflies flutter through the rays of light that had filtered through the tree branches, their soft yellow wings as making every motion gentle. He'd give anything to be one of them right now, and not something so bony and fleshy that the Juska could sink those terrible fangs in.

Tarquin shuddered at the memory of them, remembering how they and an entire set of canines and sharp teeth had been bared in anger when he'd ran into the nightmare. They'd been the biggest pair of fangs he'd ever seen on a vermin of any kind. Add in all the fierce, bright red tattoos Tarquin had glimpsed on the monster's back along with the not-so-hidden bone jewelry and spoils of slaughter hanging all over its limbs, and he was practically thinking of the worst thing he could've ever met on the road short of an adder or a _pair_ of Juska. Or all three together.

"Not goin' down that line of thought," Tarquin said immediately, cutting off his thoughts and shaking his head. The last thing he needed was the omnipotent ruler of hating-nice-things to read his mind and make things worse for him, since that was what it was apparently doing in its spare time. The fates needed to a get a hobby that didn't involve him, Tarquin thought. It was getting him rather beat up.

Judging by the way that Juska had thrown the sword earlier and almost speared him between the eyes, he was going to be a lot more than just beaten when the warrior caught up to him.

The hare rubbed his temples with one paw, trying to avoid any more gruesome thoughts of death. It contrasted in a hilariously dark way— pardon the pun, Tarquin thought, looking at the bright spots of sun that filled the woods everywhere— with how casual and happy everything else in Mossflower seemed. All the trees surrounding him were straight-trunked and perky, even their different shaped leaves tilting up towards the sun like the one overtly enthusiastic morning troupe member who was always bouncing around full of cheer on a morning filled with hangovers or injuries. Unlike before, there were no briars, but plenty of honeysuckle vines wrapped around the high branches and spreading their sweet scent from the mouth of their little trumpet flowers. They looked like natural bouquets that glowed in the sun and served as perches for fluttering butterflies.

This was a far too nice place to die, Tarquin thought, especially for what he had coming. Come on, Tarquin, he told himself, unable to keep the morbid sarcasm out of his head, the Juska probably only knows five hundred different ways to skin a hare. It'll be fine.

Tarquin was about to continue his mental panicking when a sudden inspiration hit him. He sat up straighter, staring at a butterfly that was resting directly next to a clump of yellow honeysuckles, looking just like another bunch of the flowers. But what if he _wasn't_ a hare? Or at the very least, didn't look like one?

The young actor suddenly felt stupid as he turned to look at his sack, a bag stacked with the bare survival essentials and his share of small costume items he was assigned to carry. Everybeast in the company had to take care of the smaller tidbits and a few outfit sets to keep things running smoothly. They weren't exactly a large operation on any scale. But that didn't mean that there was any lacking when it came to costumes.

The sack had no tie keeping it closed, making it easy for Tarquin to grab it, upend it, and send all his folded costumes, crumpled map, and one remaining scone tumbling onto the ground in a disorganized heap. He pawed away a crumpled cloak and fished out the wrapped scone before it could break and smear all over the clothes. Tarquin licked his lips as he did so, feeling the pastry crust underneath the thin wrap. His nose quivered at the smell. Kenna and Yosef had been on cooking duty for the past three days, and if there was one thing the vole and shrew knew how to do together, it was make a good blackberry and raspberry scone. He hadn't eaten anything in the past several hours, Tarquin thought, paw itching towards the wrapping. A little bite wouldn't hurt— he was a growing hare, after all, and everything had been so stressful with that Juska popping out of the bushes like the worst surprise party he'd ever gotten…

When he realized what was happening and felt the drool welling up in his mouth, Tarquin blinked rapidly before slapping his other paw away from the scone. It cringed back to his side like a disobedient pet. "FOCUS," he said to himself, tossing the scone away and smacking his own head with a costume scarf in paw. Perhaps he could rap a better sense of priorities through his skull. "You can eat when you've escaped certain death, wot."

Determinedly not looking at the scone (despite the fact that his nose gave a few more twitches and his ears tilted back with pining disappointment) Tarquin began to sort through his available costumes. He'd need something that could slip under the murderous tribe beast's attentions, he thought, tossing away a simple habit and Keelstrip's useless map both at once. But if the outfit and props he was thinking of were still in his bag, then that wouldn't be too much of a problem.

After pulling aside and folding the other unusable costumes— a simple tavern owner's suit, the striped and puffy pants of a jester he'd worn in _Noonvale Tales,_ a wholly inappropriate short skirt and provocative pair of garters that Keelstrip been trying to smuggle into his own bag for reasons Tarquin didn't want to know (though he did know that he was never going to put his sack near the otter's bag again when they were so easily confusable), a huge costume scarf, and a few other outfits that generally related to harmless woodlanders or peaceful living— Tarquin finally managed to gather his desired costume and props.

"Thank you, Kenna!" he said gleefully, popping the monocle from his face and practically ripping off the military jacket with jangle of metals after he'd unbuttoned it. The stiff blue sleeves and cufflinks crumpled on the ground with the shoulder pads as Tarquin appreciatively raised a beaten, patched, and generally sketchy traveling vest up to eye level— the perfect top for a run-of-the-mill vermin who was probably more interested in finding a bird to eat or some ale to drink instead of painfully eviscerating the nearest woodlander with a fork.

Tarquin pulled the vest on easily, already reaching for a loose and gypsy-style pair of pants with matching sash. It was a little brighter than he'd have liked it to be, but it was also the only thing that would cover his long legs short of the abbey robe, and he wasn't going within fifty feet of a Juska while dressed like a unarmed pacifist. The hare unbuckled the stiff belt on his general pants, standing up and kicking them off to join the jacket nearby. There was something incredibly liberating to see the hard-ironed and ever meticulous uniform he'd been instructed to fold nicely for all of his life slumped in a messy pile on the ground.

The gypsy pants were far more comfortable than the uniform, though Tarquin's tail felt smashed when he tightly wrapped the sash over to cover it. There were no vermin out there with short and fluffy tails, Tarquin thought while giving his haunches an experimental shake to make sure his tail stayed hidden, which was a pity. He didn't like binding his tail that much; it itched after so long. Reminding himself that the Juska was probably tracking him as he wasted time, Tarquin reached down and pulled out the next addition to the disguise from under a floppy hood— a long and bristly false tail.

Made from frayed material, softened pine needles, a spare belt, and lots of thread, paste, and Kenna's patience, it was a dark brown thing that slithered over the leaves just as easily as a normal mustelid's tail did. Double it up and lower the stage lighting, and it provided an awkward fox tail when the other props were short. Tarquin belted it low around his waist (it had to be worn there to compensate for his long legs and give the appearance of his torso being longer than it really was) hoping that it wouldn't fall off in the middle of his walking and land around his heels. That would be difficult to explain, he thought, tucking the belt underneath a fold of sash to hide it. There. Done with that layer.

Knowing what was coming next, Tarquin grimaced at the cheery setting and honeysuckles around him before taking one last whiff of their aroma. He tried not to inhale too hard as he secured a round and black snail shell to his quivering nose with a dab of pine sap. It was uncomfortable, and the inside of the thing always smelled like pine needles shoving their way up his nostrils, but it was also a perfect imitation of a generic vermin nose. As long as there wasn't any tasty food being eaten or cooked around him to torment his blocked sense of smell, he'd be fine.

A few more minutes and a coil of bandages and a floppy hood later, and Tarquin looked nothing like a hare. He patted the top of the huge archer hood and checked his ears one last time as he packed up the rest of the costumes, making sure that only a sliver of his ears were sticking up. Being a hare in show business had its drawbacks; their long ears were much harder to hide or put fake ears over than those of an otter, squirrel, shrew, or mouse.

Tarquin had gotten introduced to ear binding early in his career when he'd been cast as a loony background beast of ambitious species for his second role (the troupe hadn't liked his poetic waxing in the previous play and his first appearance that much; they felt he went a little overboard with all the gesturing and almost kicking Yosef off the stage). Throw him a coil of bandage and a hood, and Tarquin could tie his ears together and carefully fold them back to adjust the amount of them poking out of the ear slits. It was uncomfortable— vastly more so than the nose shell— but it worked.

It would certainly fool a Juska if he played his cards right, Tarquin thought, grinning as he tromped over to his sack and slung it over his shoulder. The walk of an apathetic vermin traveler wasn't difficult to copy, and soon he was slinking out of the flower and vine-filled spot in the woods and heading towards the path once more. In fact, Tarquin thought, walk becoming more confident as he passed through the quiet and tranquil trees, he might not even see the Juska again. If there was a hare general to hunt down and rip trophies from, why bother harassing a fellow vermin traveler with nothing but a lumpy sack? Tarquin's hope grew as he picked a path underneath the trees, given a new sense of purpose. He began to whistle.

Keelstrip's drawings had been beyond terrible, but if there was one thing the otter paid attention to on maps, it was bodies of water. He'd drawn a nearby stream in ludicrous detail, complete with jilted little swirls that were supposed to recommend currents and tiny black blobs that could've either been squashed bugs or his representations of fish. Tarquin had heard the soft bubbling of a stream while he'd been on the path, and as he got closer and closer to the place again while an hour of woodland traveling passed, his whistling and his happiness grew. He was terrible at carrying a tune, and even worse at doing so for a vermin shanty, but why not? The troupe had to be somewhere beyond the stream, Tarquin thought, whistling out a few more mutilated notes of _Slaughter of the Crew of the Rusty Chain._

The hare was overjoyed to not see a single peep of the Juska or the secretive bushes that hid it again, skipping inwardly underneath his in-character trudge as he went forward. He butchered another music lyric with an off-key whistle, joyfully ducked under a low branch obscuring his sight, and stepped out into the clearing up ahead the exact moment Victin Stubfang did. Again.


	4. Chapter 4

For a split moment, much like the same way Victin and Tarquin had run into each other previously, both stoat and hare stared at was apparently in their way— a regular, homely-looking hare, and a just as awkward-looking regular vermin traveler. For another half of a second, they both felt complete relief. There was no angry Juska baring its giant curved fangs and tattooed body and no medal-covered Long Patrol general wielding a rapier. It was just another companion, they both thought, beginning to relax.

Then they remembered what they were disguised like in the other half of the second. All relaxation fled out of the clearing as swiftly as the two beasts had ran screaming from each other a few hours earlier.

The whistle died on Tarquin's lips as his eyes went as wide as teacup saucers, and Victin already felt a whole slew of curses on absolutely everything building in his mouth as he considered turning right around and making a break for it, the stoat's arm still frozen where it was reaching up help him duck under a branch.

_I blinkin' HATE irony sometimes,_ Tarquin thought.

Victin and Tarquin both immediately tried to backpedal in their spots, the two beasts stepping backwards without bothering to turn around. If they'd have retreated into the forest the same way they came, they would've actually been successful. It was unfortunate for them that Victin forgot about the branch he ducked under when entering the clearing and Tarquin didn't notice the vine strung low over the ground behind him.

The stoat stepped backward and slammed his skull against the back of the limb with a dull thud that he felt throughout his entire head. The fake ears on his hat quivered, and Victin had to resist swearing to keep from flashing his fangs to the beast across from him, the stoat's arms windmilling once like a drunken beast balancing on a limb before he managed to stand up with his paw clutching at his aching skull. He ended up biting his lip to keep from getting out more than the start of a curse, stars swimming in front of his eyes as a pitiful whimper crawled out from between his teeth.

_Pride? What's 'pride'? _Victin thought, his eyes burning with the tears of pain as the branch sent him skittering back into the clearing like a shamed stage-manager who'd gotten an earful from Oscela, slinking from her caravan with tail tucked between his legs (and Victin's would have been as well if it wasn't tied around his waist.)

Tarquin responded to his eloquent whimper and crash into a low branch by tripping backwards over a vine and falling with just as much elegance.

One moment, the hare was backing up to avoid a confused confrontation with a fellow woodland traveler— hoping he wasn't going to end up getting a thrashing straight from _Saber and Bloodwrath_ after all— and the next, his foot and false tail were catching on a vine and the sky looked quite pleasant when one stared straight up.

Well, it would've, if Tarquin hadn't slammed his head and body in general into the ground and was too busy seeing stars to marvel at the sky.

A garbled mutter burst out of his mouth that Tarquin was half-sure of being 'Blinking curse you, Keelstrip.' The hare was so used to the otter laying him out over the stage in one way or another that any fall, blow, or concussion that dizzied his head had Tarquin automatically cursing Keelstrip in semi-consciousness. With the fake tail stuffed under him like a caterpillar, ears straining against their binding, and limbs thrown out to the side like he was going to make a snow angel— in the middle of summer— Tarquin Fleetpaw felt the last bit of dignity die inside him with a final squeak.

_Stripping naked and quoting Woe Upon My Hedgehog to those angry robins back in the earlier part of the forest would've been more dignified, _Tarquin thought, his face burning as he clumsily righted himself and stumbled back into the clearing. The last stars were fading from his vision when he realized that he and the other hare opposite from him were staring at each other.

_At least he's not a threat,_ Victin and Tarquin thought, trying to eye each other with the least amount of awkwardness possible. Victin put on an air of being composed and casually disdainful.

_I don't think he saw that, _the stoat thought, having seen Tarquin bowl over backwards through his watering eyes. _Thank Hellgates for small mercies._

"Who're ya?" Tarquin growled, protectively clutching the neck of his sack and laying on the accent thick. He spoke more aggressively than he intended to, but the hare felt like he needed it. There was no doubt that the beast across from him had witnessed his oh-so-graceful floundering. He didn't want to make himself look like an easier target than before.

Victin shifted his weight and tapped his fingers over his hip as if he had a weapon, scrutinizing the vermin across him. He did it with less malice than he needed to for the role— he wanted to be a little intimidating, not start a fight. "You first, you blinkin' vermin, wot wot."

The stoat's voice seesawed over the accent more than it should have, giving him the air of being a beast that'd had just a little to drink or a whap in the skull with a small frying pan. Victin had never played a speaking hare before or met one first-paw; he'd been a background character as one once. _How do their bloody accents work?_ Victin thought, trying to keep his pseudo-belly underneath the large coat from wobbling like a dancing stomach tumor.

A small sliver of fear pricked his heart as he and the vermin began to edge around the clearing slightly, both still cautious. What if the vermin picked up on his jilted accent? Hellgates, this situation would be hard to explain, and he wasn't stripping down out of his disguise in case the hare general came around.

Victin dismissed some of his fears when he saw the traveler across from him further. He was a generic and ugly vermin, enough so that he had no definable species other than 'maybe a crackpot mustelid' or 'mother had a _really_ active social life.' The mix-and-match clothes practically screamed of a deep forest resident. (As Ripfang had put it once, 'Bein' ugly is a gift, and the giver is very generous.') Those vermin were the kind that paid in bent-up coins and stray turnips to watch plays when the troupe came around, or if they were generous, a meal. _But does he have the accent? _Victin thought. The stoat tried to keep his fake ears from tilting over again.

"I don't owe anythin' ta a blinkin' hare; I don't haveta tell ya if I dun't want ta," Tarquin said, giving a little scowl and adopting the sullen attitude many vermin seemed to possess. When he saw the hare shifting, he quickly changed his tone. Keeping in character wasn't worth getting in a fight. "But my name is—"

_Dark Forest Gates, what do I say?_ Tarquin thought, fear pounding in him as his tongue abruptly went mute. 'Tarquin Fleetpaw' was as subtle a hare name as getting nailed in the face with a brick. He could hardly introduce himself that way— but what was a regular vermin name? The flowery menace and exaggerated names in any of the dramatic plays wouldn't work. Tarquin had never met a vermin other than the corsair ferret he'd run through with a sword, and that exchange could be boiled down to 'OH BLINKIN' BLOOMERS HE'S IN MY FACE WHERE DO I STAB' on Tarquin's part, and 'DAMNIT! There's a har— URGHasgurgle…' on the ferret's. It wasn't really a tea-and-crumpet meeting.

_Vermin name themselves after body parts and gore, right?_ Tarquin thought, racking his brain to reassure himself. The silence had stretched on for a few moments, and under the watching eyes of the other hare, Tarquin cleared his throat and thought quickly.

"Bloodclaw McFangface," Tarquin said.

_He IS one of that lot,_ Victin thought. No wonder he looked that way; there was definitely alcohol involved before and after when his mother popped him out (and perhaps during.) It explained his name.

Seeing the expectant look on the other vermin's face, Victin kept in character and ran his fingers along the rim of his hat's beak. He could feel the scarf crumpled against his belly whenever he moved. Victin hoped that Fate would stop poking at him like a cub with a stick or whenever Ripfang tried to wake Marvelo without falling victim to his reflexes; it'd be just his luck for the scarf to start poking out like a bunch of cloth entrails.

"Fair enough, vermin," Victin said, trying not to let his body curve in a manner that'd give away his long torso and waist. The other vermin would probably think he was possessed if a hare started bending like a water reed. "Since you've bally introduced yourself, wot, I guess it's my turn, wot wot. I am known as—"

_The most bloody unlucky stoat actor this side of Mossflower,_ Victin thought. He could remember the name of one hare from the comedy satire _Salamandastron Is In The Goddamn Ocean_, but it'd been ages since he'd met another troupe who'd put it on, and he didn't think 'Captain Fannigan Wotwont' would be a suitable name to keep the bit of respect for himself he had left. Add in the fact that if the Long Patrol general caught the other vermin somehow and interrogated him, he might just go looking for the supposed Captain. The stoat was already struggling to remember the correct accent; he didn't need more trouble on his plate.

_Hares love drawn out titles and fancy names; just think of another way to say 'fast' as pompous as you can,_ Victin thought, keeping his hat brim turned down and other paw holding his satchel still. He gave a dramatic flourish with his paw worthy of a sassy Oscela and thought swiftly.

"—Basil P. Fastfoot IX, wot wot." Victin said. That sounded like a suitable hare name.

The vermin across from him looked over him a little longer before edging closer to the clearing's side again, something both of them had been doing for the past several minutes. It was a demented circle of slow movements as they both tried to get closer to the sound of the running water through the trees while staying as far away from each other as possible. The other vermin dipped his head.

_Poor fellow, _Tarquin thought as he repressed a wince, still trying to look surly, _he's one of those chaps who got number-named._ It was more common in hares than most other species— particularly within large Salamandastron families— for a poor beast to get saddled with their mother's, father's or grandparent's name for the umpteenth time out of some obligation to pay tribute or to constantly remind the name-bearing hare that there was someone heroic or memorable back in their family line. That or the family just got tired of thinking up names for their large amount of cubs and Vivian H. Fopshind XIII was born out-of-luck.

"Fair enough, hare," Tarquin said. He gave a small snort afterwards, but was unable to keep his eyes from nervously going over the other hare and how the pair of them seemed to be gravitating towards one point of the clearing. The sound of running water was loud and clear through the thinning trees and a downward slope. Tarquin hadn't known he was so close to his goal. "Now that _that's _outta the way, I'll just be goin' on."

"Bally well enough, vermin, wot wot," Victin said, mockingly echoing Tarquin's earlier words. He pulled his satchel up higher. _Hares and all their 'wots'… how do they speak with so many of them?_ "I'll be heading on the road, wot wot."

Tarquin wondered if he had a speech impediment. No one he knew spoke with that many 'wots.' _Neither do they have oddly lumpy and off-center bellies,_ he thought, keeping himself from staring as he turned and began to march towards the sound of the stream. Tarquin didn't think of himself as being judgmental, but Basil P. Fastfoot was easily one of the most… handsome-ly impaired hares he'd ever seen. Maybe it was a medical condition.

The disguised Tarquin was still walking towards the slope at the edge of the clearing when he heard footsteps mimicking his and spotted two ears (one lopsided) at the corners of his vision. Tarquin blinked and stopped dead at the exact same time Victin did. Both of them stared at each other from their parallel positions in the clearing, bags slung over their shoulders. It took a moment for the situation to click.

"What're you doin', vermin?" Victin said sharply. There was more fear driving his voice to be forceful instead of anger. Having to stay disguised and unhurried in front of another traveler would slow his progress, and whether or not the hare general wasn't going to touch him, he didn't want to run into him again. Ever.

"What're _ya_ doin'?" Tarquin shot back, a similar internal crisis going through him. Martin help him, it didn't matter that he was dressed up as a vermin; the Juska warrior from earlier would probably skin him alive out of some demented pleasure just for the sake of it— and it wouldn't help that he was traveling next to a hare.

"I'm goin' down to the stream to take care of my own jolly business, wot wot," Victin said, giving the other vermin a dirty look as took a step forward. The light in the clearing was much brighter than any place he'd trodden today; spaced apart trees and gaps in the spreading green bunches of leaves above let illumination come down to create a sharp silhouette behind the stoat of a pudgy-bellied hare. Victin felt a little apologetic for harassing a fellow vermin traveler, but he decided he'd also feel pretty damn apologetic about getting a Long Patrol rapier through his stomach. "Don't you have some place to go, Bloodtooth, wot wot?"

"It's BloodCLAW," Tarquin said, puffing his chest out and swelling in false irritation. He felt like a miniature Yosef was trying to dance a jig in his belly and throw juggling balls against his innards. Every moment spent waiting was a moment where the Juska could be getting closer, and if Tarquin got the hare across from killed because that monster found them— but he himself spared because of his disguise— the young actor didn't think he'd ever forgive himself. If he had to act pushy and defensive to get the other beast to leave him alone and managed to put up a façade of being actually intimidating, he'd do it. "I'm a stinkin' set 'o teeth in the jaws of a gale; I kin go wherever I want ta."

Tarquin punctuated his words with a slight pushing forward of his chest like a smug pigeon. He was proud through his anxiety; that line had been all his own and he thought he'd nailed a vermin attitude perfectly. The other hare gave him an odd look before snorting and continuing to walk towards the stream. Tarquin, trying to keep in character, slumped and pulled the sack further up his back as he went on.

The two beasts quickly realized that the downward slope turned into a full-fledged hill as they approached the clearing's borders, seeing all the leaves and ground being sucked down into a slippery, treacherous-to-navigate, steep hillside. At the very bottom of the long hill— as a greenish shifting ribbon barely visible between the trees— was the stream. Both Victin and Tarquin inwardly cringed about having to descend down the slope in costume. One slip and they'd be rolling more swiftly than an obese shrew punted down a mountainside.

It was Tarquin whom finally made the first move, balancing on foot and tentatively placing his other on the beginning of the steep hill. Victin stepped behind him out of pure habit and waited to see the results. The two travelers had unconsciously been getting closer to each other as they walked towards the hill (both of them intuitively wanted to get close to a fellow vermin or hare traveler though they were in costume). But neither of them was quite paying attention to such things.

Tarquin placed his weight on a wobbling leg as he straightened himself up, standing on the slick and leaf-covered ground. He was wary and scared for a moment, feeling the slipperiness of the forest floor underneath him, but the hare finished standing up with a pleased smile when he didn't go tumbling down. Tarquin poked another foot forward with confidence.

"Well, this ain't so bad," he said, a childish kind of relief and smugness on his face as he spoke. He wasn't sure if it was towards himself or the other hare traveler behind him. "Just gotta move slOOOW!"

With a surprised shriek, Tarquin's foot slid out from under him, throwing leaves into the air like demented confetti as the disguised hare's arms flew up behind him. Victin startled at his yelp but didn't move, the stoat's feet still firmly on strong ground, and there was a ripping noise right before Tarquin desperately lunged at Victin to grab something to hold on to— which happened to be the stoat's stuffed coat. Victin gave something between a curse and a yelp and jerked back, dragging Tarquin up to the hilltop clearing again. Popped buttons scattered over the ground in all directions.

Victin staggered up, feeling the weight of Tarquin pulling him down as he tried to get his bearings. There was something fuzzy underneath his foot and a tugging sensation around his waist, and the vermin across from him was shaking his head dizzily before he looked at Victin with actual focus. There was a brief pause. Tarquin's eyes grew wide with as he looked at Victin, a squeak escaping his mouth. Victin stared in discomfort at his expressions as he felt the fluffy thing under his foot squash further.

"Oh, Martin," Tarquin squeaked, his face paling. He looked ready to throw up. "I didn't— didn't mean to—"

Following the line of his eyes, Victin looked down. Tarquin hadn't just grabbed his coat and popped a few buttons off. He'd unintentionally grabbed the coil of red scarf underneath. The vermin across from him was staring in terror at the loop of red material hanging between his paws, the length of which ran back through one of the gaps between buttons like a coil. In all retrospect to Tarquin's panicked eyes, it looked like he had gutted his traveling partner.

Victin half-wanted to laugh at the look on the other vermin's face if he hadn't been filled with the sinking feeling of his disguise being torn apart. _The poor ugly beast—_

Victin's thoughts stopped dead when he suddenly glimpsed something on the ground. The stoat stared at the long loop of fur that curved over the leaves and passed underneath his foot, pinned there. Victin mutely bent down and picked it up while Tarquin was still holding the scarf in his paw with abject terror. Victin stared at it longer when he'd stood up.

His tail. He was holding the other vermin's torn-off tail.

When Tarquin registered what Victin had in his paws, all the hare's fading gibberish came to a complete stop. His paw automatically went back to grasp at where at his tail had been attached before. He found only a belt and a torn base of material and fluff. Victin didn't miss his action.

The two beasts stared mutely at each other for a few more long seconds as the realizations in their heads clicked.

"I'm sorry, I'm so blinkin' sorry," Tarquin burst out, lunging backward and trying to rip his false tail out of Victin's paws. His apologizing was filled with more hysteria about what he slowly realized was happening rather than sorrow as he tried to get away.

"This is a bloody misunderstandin'—" Victin said, trying to jerk back and get his stuffing scarf out of Tarquin's paws, the stoat backpedaling like only an expert could. It hadn't occurred to the hysterical Tarquin to let go of the scarf yet, and another foot of the red material pulled out of the coat like a sausage link being dragged out. Victin hadn't let go of the tail, either, despite the fact that Tarquin was now clutching the other end and desperately tugging on it.

Both beasts yanked back to flee at the same time the scarf and tail reached their limits for being stretched. It was unfortunate that Victin had forgotten he'd tied the first loop of the scarf around his waist instead of just stuffing it in the coat.

The scarf was like elastic, giving Tarquin and Victin one step each before the stretched cloth and oddly durable false tail (Kenna was a good seamstress) jerked them back together with all the force of a slingshot. The stoat and hare slammed together and cracked heads, brought on by their own momentum, and both travelers yelped and screeched as they saw stars.

Dizzily pulling back from each other, they tried to escape once more, only to be unable to pull away. A large crude button on Tarquin's vest had snagged between two of the buttons on Victin's coat, knotting them together more thoroughly than a rope. Victin and Tarquin were yanked together to crack heads again, yelping and swearing as they stumbled over the clearing edge like a decapitated bird, and both beasts went over the edge and down the hill with a scream of a surprise.

A blurry, knotted ball of hare and stoat rolled down the hill, being thrown up into the air at every random bounce off an obstructing tree trunk or bump, and both travelers involved became nothing but a blur of wayward limbs, screaming, swearing, and yelping as they tumbled down the hill— sounds that were only muted when the entangled ball crashed into the stream. Water sprayed everywhere in a splash of waterweed, costume pieces, and fur.

A shocking wet cold enveloped Tarquin for a moment, and then he burst out of the water with a stream of bubbles escaping from his mouth before he sat up. Hacking, coughing, and gasping, Tarquin blindly paddled the water before he realized it wasn't deeper than his chest— while he was sitting down.

The clear water stream water was filled with floating clothes and stage props, the material prevented from floating downstream by getting stuck on some nearby rocks and jagged snags. A scarf stuck around a branch rippled like a wave of color in the water. Two ears (Tarquin did a double-take when he saw them) hooked onto a hat shivered in the water like weeds in the current. A thin stream of dye melting from something tainted the waves with a string of color.

Tarquin then realized he was sitting on that something the dye was coming off of. Actually, he was sitting in that something's lap. The hare gawked at the face merely inches away from his that was getting its bearings, a hat no longer covering its round ears and long face. Judging by the freed way his own long ears were pinning back in shock, Tarquin could guess he'd lost his own hood and ear wrappings. Everything was now out in the open.

The hare would've gotten more time to appreciate the awkwardness of straddling a stoat lap's— and Victin would've gotten the time to appreciate feeling wholly conscious again— if Tarquin's immediate reflex to having a foe so close hadn't been to uppercut Victin in the face.

The stoat was conscious for a moment after he burst out of the water, dizzy and coughing at the sudden coldness and the aching in his head. Victin only had enough time to see the dye from his tattoos coming off and making lazy ribbons in the water with lots of other stage props and clothes floating in it, and then he got a brief glimpse of a hare's wide eyed face before there was a blur of movement and a sudden snap of pain in his skull.

Victin saw the world and the shocked hare's face go to a blurry black, light fading out before he dropped backwards and felt the cool water envelop him again.


	5. Chapter 5

A thin sliver of light flickered into Victin's eyes as his eyelids fluttered open. He groaned, feeling the tender pound throughout his entire head. The bright white light creeping into his vision hurt. He screwed his eyes shut again as he fumbled on the ground around him, trying to feel where he was. Crumpled leaves and dry dirt greeted him. Victin clumsily got his arms behind him to right himself, his body weaving and wavering against his will at the act of sitting up.

…_damnit, did I pass out at a bar again?_ Victin thought, slumping forward and rubbing his eyes. By the pounding in his head and the unrecognizable sound of running water nearby, the stoat bet he had. The stinking bouncer had probably thrown him out the door again after he passed out. It wouldn't be the first time.

Still, that had to have been some good rum if he was having trouble remembering things and felt like something had driven into his skull. Victin took a deep breath, groaning again as he pinched the bridge of his muzzle and massaged his face. He really, really hoped the wet feeling on his clothes wasn't vomit— his or somebeast else's. Or possibly something worse.

If he woke up with an internal organ missing or wearing a lacy skirt again, Victin thought, he was calling it quits.

The stoat opened his eyes, squinting at the light. A startled and cautious-looking hare sat a few feet away from him. It leaned back and flinched slightly as he sat up straighter and stared at it. The rush of memories hit Victin in the face like Tarquin had punched him again. The hare swallowed hard as the stoat dragged himself back a few inches with his paws, still staring.

Victin was almost tempted to shut his eyes again and go back to lying down and hoping he wasn't in the aftermath of some drunken crossdressing again. Almost.

He went with continuing to stare back at the hare across from him.

"Who're _you?_" Victin growled. He suddenly remembered meeting the other beast in the clearing, the not-so-graceful reveal later, and the fall and tumble down the hill, his limbs aching all at once. Victin looked down at his clothes. He still had the stretched jacket on, but the red scarf that had been wound around his belly and caused him so much misery was gone. Everything was still damp.

Seeing him staring down at his clothes, Tarquin gave an awkward cough as he cleared his throat. "I, er, had to drag you out of the stream, so some of your clothes might not be there. I'm bally sorry about… um… your f— your scarf," he hastily corrected.

One thing about disasters, both drunk and not, was that Victin Stubfang possessed the talent to always remember the worst event that occurred before blackout, whether it happened to be a one-eared rat bouncer kicking him out the door or Ripfang screaming that THE SANDBAG ROPE BROKE, BLOODY RUN! This was no exception.

"You punched me in the face," Victin said flatly.

Tarquin swallowed, giving a nervous laugh. "Yes. Yes, I did, wot, but I— it was necessary at the time, alright?" he burst out, wildly gesturing with his paws as it was his turn to recoil. "That bally roll down in the hill is what blinkin' dumped me in your lap; I didn't want to—"

"Wait, you were bloody _where?_" Victin said.

"It was an accident!" Tarquin yelped, getting on his feet and backing up defensively as Victin got to his, both of them equally terrified, confused, and on edge.

_He's going to reach for a weapon, and he's going to stab me,_ Tarquin and Victin thought. Both of them made strangled sounds as their throats as they considered what had happened, a flood of unpleasant memories and various costume mishaps filling their heads. There was a pause as vermin and woodlander eyed each other and their sodden and beaten costumes.

Both of them burst out with explanations simultaneously.

"—and all I wanted to was to keep from bein' eaten by a Juska, honestly, I wasn't aimin' for anything else, and then I thought I was goin' to get bally gutted before my other tail fell off so please please don't blinkin' pull a Keelstrip and run me through—"

"—was just tryin' ta avoid a hare general, but I couldn't wash off my tattoos an' all the damn briars kept stickin' up my kilt so I just changed an' then the whole thing went downhill; it's not my bloody fault, I just wanted ta get drunk—"

"ENOUGH!" Victin yelled, cutting off the rush of gibberish from both of them. Both he and Tarquin immediately shut their mouths afterwards. They remained standing, still glaring at each other. Neither of them edged closer.

Underneath his rapidly beating heart, Tarquin was wishing that he'd at least changed out of costume and into something else before he had to confront the stoat he'd sucker-punched. He didn't wait to die looking like a hare vagrant who'd stolen someone's pants. _Is dignity in death or at least a better pair of pants too much to ask for?_ Tarquin thought miserably, still tensed as he watched the vermin across from him.

Victin, meanwhile, took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He was speaking to a hare who may or may not have been in a compromising position with him before socking him in the face _after _they both rolled down a hill. He was also wearing the stretched jacket that hung off him like an ugly second skin and (now that the buttons had accidentally been ripped off) revealed more fur than Oscela's barmaid costume.

_The day just keeps on getting better and better, _they thought.

"What is your name, an' what the Hellgates were you doin'?" Victin finally spoke up, getting his voice under control. Tarquin squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze, and Victin remained stiff and tensed. He wasn't planning on letting down his guard so soon; there were good actors out there other than in his troupe, and many beasts had found scumsucking creative places to stash daggers.

Finally Tarquin and Victin both sat down, deciding that standing up with both of them looking on the verge of bolting was not a good position to be in for a calm discussion. Tarquin squirmed in his seat as Victin continued to pointedly stare at him. The hare cleared his throat.

"I was tryin' to go home, an' I, ah, had some complications," Tarquin said, giving a cough and trying to look as discreet as possible. "Chiefly you— no offense, wot— an'… um…" The hare struggled to come up with an adequate statement that covered facing down a Juska and getting whipped more thoroughly than a meringue and coward pie, then admitting to it to another possibly dangerous vermin. He could come up with nothing.

Tarquin quickly sat up straighter and crossed his arms, leaning back in an imitation of indignation and hoping that all the briars and mud all over his face would hide the burn in his cheeks at the thought of (the one of many) the humiliating incidents. "Wait a blinkin' moment, why am _I _explainin' everything to you first?" He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Why should I have ta explain everythin' ta _you _first?" Victin said, struggling to not just reply with 'because I think you might be plotting to stab me between the ribs; plus, _sonority_.' "Do you think you're entitled ta that for bein' a hare? If anythin', you're the one who caused this by thinkin' you could waltz around the forest dressed a vermin when you're already a bloody woodlander; your very existence repels the majority of tripe you'd get tossed your way for bein' a vermin."

Tarquin gave a high pitched laugh that Keelstrip would've been proud of at the lack of sanity in (not necessarily proud of the pitch, no, but the lack of sanity.) "What, an' you don't think there's a few vermin out there who wouldn't want to skin my blinkin' pelt for existin'? You haven't met some of the other beasts walkin' around the road then, wot."

"I'll give _you_ a 'want ta skin my blinkin' pelt'; where the hell have you been if you're runnin' inta that kind of lot around here?" Victin snapped. His and Tarquin's fur were bristling, and both of them were sitting stiffly in their seats. "Unless you've read too many of those bloated hero-ballad plays the woodlanders are always puttin' on an' addled your brains—"

"My brain wasn't bally _addled _when I nearly got speared by a Juska!" Tarquin yelled. He didn't bother with trying to clamp his mouth shut afterwards and pretend that his words just didn't burst out, though it was tempting.

_The blooming adder was out of the bag now; might as well face the humiliating music,_ Tarquin thought.

Victin was ready to snap back another angry retort, one of his teeth corners beginning to show and ears tilting back, but he stopped dead at Tarquin's words. "Wait, nearly got speared by a _what?_"

"A Juska!" Tarquin said, waving his paws empathetically and bringing them down through the air with every word. The melodramatic side of him was winning out. "I almost got speared by a terrifyin', kilt-wearin', bone-jewelry covered bonafide JUSKA, and you can't tell me that is NOT a bally legitimate reason to be in disguise, wot!"

The look on Victin's face when he heard Tarquin mention a Juska was something else. The stoat just sat there, a blank look on his face, and Tarquin stared nervously back and fidgeted at the oddly emotionless stoat that was staring at him. Tarquin raised a tentative paw as he shrank back, like a dibbun gingerly poking a bizarre insect stuck to the wall.

"Um… sir… are you… alright?" Tarquin squeaked out. Victin still stared at him.

_Oh bally Martin, he has PTSD,_ Tarquin thought. Ten to one it was from a horrible hare-related incident right out of_ Saber and Bloodwrath._

"So if you saw a Juska," Victin said slowly, speaking up and making Tarquin start with surprise, "you wouldn't be familiar be a hare general of any kind, would you?"

Tarquin frowned. "What? No, I haven't been back at Salamandastron in yea—" Tarquin froze as something clicked in his head. He stared at Victin in numb silence. Both hare and stoat just blankly gazed at each other for several long moments. A short distance away, the stream continued to babble on cheerfully, as if nothing was different or wayward in the world.

"…no," Tarquin said, still just frozen in his spot, "no, no, no, no, NO."

Victin's eye twitched violently, the stoat looking like he was going to burst out and say something before he shut his mouth and reached up one of his paws, slowly dragging his claws down over the bridge of his nose and still staring at Tarquin. The hare didn't look quite so unfamiliar now.

"You're jokin'," he said. "You're bloody goddamn _jokin'_." It didn't sound like he was speaking to Tarquin.

Tarquin made several spluttering noises, trying to find the correct gestures to make, but the hare only ended up wind-milling his paws in the air, mouth gaping and opening and shutting like a dying fish. The younger actor eventually dropped his paws down and gave a hysterical giggle. "No! No, I'm not jokin'! We think everything is over, an' what do you know, wot, just when it all seems alright again, plot twist! How— this is worse than any drama I've ever bally read!" Tarquin giggled again before giving a halting laugh, his eyes far too wide for the action. All of the insane hassle and stress of the day were beginning to break him.

His emotion wasn't exclusive as Victin began to chuckle, his fur still on end and chest shaking slightly harder than it needed to be for the action. "You're— you're right. I mean, what are the bloody odds of this happenin'?" Victin began to chuckle harder, and Tarquin's giggling went up a pitch. "Two times in one day—"

"An' we run into each other dressed up in costume, not knowin' who was underneath—" Tarquin added, leaning closer and still giggling, it beginning to morph into a near hysterical laugh that would've landed him a madman part last audition.

"—an' didn't even know we were both harmless, so we were both terrified an' convinced we were goin' ta DIE all day!" Victin said, leaning forward in response so that hare and stoat were almost nose to nose, both of their eyes widened to the point where they almost bulging out of their faces, and the two smiles of woodlander and vermin stretched to their very limits with gritted teeth.

Victin and Tarquin paused in their narration, going completely silent for a moment. They stared at each other's too-wide eyes and forced and stretched grins that would've been off-putting to a pike. Something underneath Victin's eye twitched unpleasantly, and the nearly muted stirrings of a high-pitched giggle vibrated in Tarquin's throat.

Both stoat and hare burst out into howling, screaming laughter.

Victin and Tarquin's bodies dissolved into shaking, flopping messes with their bone marrow the consistency of putty, their screaming laughter sending all birds in a mile radius flying for cover and creating a speciest bias from robins towards hares and stoats which would last for the next three seasons. Victin and Tarquin were practically leaning on each other as they howled, arms drunkenly slung over each other's' shoulders as they veered back and forth, tears of hysteria building in their wide eyes as they pointed at each other's faces and laughed, their mirth far too enthusiastic. Both of them sounded like they were crying or flat out screaming at moments instead of laughing.

After a long minute, their laughter slowly fading away and their chests ceased their heaving, the forest around them faded into quietness. Tarquin sniffed and wiped one of his eyes as Victin cleared his throat, both of giving a few final titters and chuckles as they wound down. It was around then that they realized they were staring at each other's faces and in much closer proximity than before (arms hanging over their shoulders included) only second to when Tarquin had made his graceful landing into Victin's lap.

Tarquin and Victin immediately stiffened and released each other, pushing away and squirming back into their regular spots. There were several awkward coughs and stilted muttered apologies as they were unable to meet eyes. _The day had already been bad enough, but then I practically had a hysterical laughter breakdown and threw myself on top of a random stranger in the process, _they both thought. _Wonderful._

_This usually only happens when I'm drunk,_ Victin thought. Which he'd like to be; fighting an inebriated stranger over a shot glass or arguing with an equally sodden Ripfang about whether or not there truly was a pickled newt floating in the suspicious vodka bottle at the wildcat's bar would be a step up from this.

_This would've already accidentally violated four Class 2 harassment laws at Salamandastron,_ Tarquin thought, rubbing the back of his head and coughing once more. And also possibly one about implied fraternization within inappropriate costume, but he didn't want to consider that.

"So," Victin said, voice gruff, clearing his throat one last time. He loosely crossed his arms.

Tarquin blinked before he realized the stoat was talking to him, hare sitting up a bit straighter and clasping his paws together in his lap as if all was well. This was practically the same thing he'd done when he'd been called into his commanding officer's office for a meeting after the whole puking-on-your-superior-and-disgracing-you-and-your-future-descendents-for-the-rest-of-your-existence incident.

"So," Tarquin said. Despite the wreck that had occurred with the finesse of a badger colliding with a boulder, he couldn't feel the same strain and pure nervousness from before. There was something to be said about a breakdown of frenetic laughter on a stranger for clearing away any fears. "I suppose so much for tryin' to save our own skins, seein' there was nothing out there after us in the first place, wot. What's your name? Mine's Tarquin Fleetfoot," Tarquin said, extending a paw out.

Victin looked at him cautiously, making sure he wasn't trying to pull anything, but the stoat responded in kind and shook paws with him. Both of them were crumpled and covered in splotches of dirt and not-quite-dried water, clothes soiled and fur drying in wayward peaks under the sun and their pawshake hardly friendly, but a peace offering was still a peace offering.

"Victin Stubfang," he said. He released Tarquin's paw as they moved back again, the stoat slouching forward and lying one of his elbows on a propped up knee. It felt good not to have to keep up that perpetual sucked in and rigid hunker that came with playing a hare or woodlander in costume. "Can't say I'm too pleased ta meet you under the circumstances, but you're a bloody better sight than anythin' else I could've ran inta."

"Same here, wot," Tarquin said. Though he was more relaxed than before, and not slouching as much as the vermin was, Tarquin was still a solid two or three paws shorter than Victin without counting his long ears. One of them twitched as a bug tried to light on it. "It was upliftin' to see you instead of a Juska! What were you doin' out here, anyway? I was tryin' to fin— _return _to my troupe, but there were a few, ah, difficulties." Tarquin gave a subtle cough.

The stoat across from him tensed slightly at his words, but he remained slouching and near casual with a composed face. After so many seasons on the road, instantaneous trust in others had a tendency to wither, particularly for those outside one's species niche— and for damn good reason, Victin thought. It didn't mean he had to act like a bilge-snorting tripeball to anybeast with a different pelt on their back, but neither did it mean he was letting any of his guard down.

"I was tendin' ta my own travelin' business," Victin said, flicking a claw over his knee and answering coolly as he pulled on what Tarquin had come to recognize as 'the stage face.' The stoat's guardedness was beyond evident in everything. "My troupe's elsewhere."

"Oh, come on," Tarquin snapped, his battered patience breaking. He waved his paws in exasperation. "I'm not goin' to pull a bally patrol out of my pocket to arrest you or anything, wot, an' it's not like I'm goin' to suddenly start wailin' about how you're a stoat an' start throwin' military medals at you. Why are we still keepin' this up? We're actors," Tarquin said. "We can be whatever beast or whoever we want, whenever we want. If there's any two beasts in Mossflower who should be able to talk without worryin' about species, it's us."

Tarquin hesitated at the end of his words before he gave a tilted grin, looking just a little bolder. "Well, we can _try_ to be whatever beast we want. Four 'wots' in one line? Who have you been listenin' to? Nobeast has an accent like that."

"I've never played a hare afore, an' your accent is bloody irritatin'," Victin said defensively, scowling a margin. "I don't know you how your lot regulates what goes where."

"It's a natural thing, wot," Tarquin said, waving a paw and squinting for a moment as a ray of sun leaked through the treetops. "…and that one 'wot' does not count as underminin' my point."

Victin snorted, running his claws over his head and feeling some of the ache in his skull where Tarquin had socked him. That was going to need some stinking poultices on it later. "No, your terrible imitation of how vermin talk does." Victin raised an eyebrow, but he couldn't keep some of the smirk off his face at the hare's squirm. "'I'm a stinkin' set 'o teeth in the jaws of a gale'; _really?_"

"An' what's wrong with it?" Tarquin said. The younger hare was starting to feel more miffed by the minute, but that wasn't stopping the slight embarrassed flush underneath his cheeks' fur. He'd actually been proud of that line.

"Everythin'," Victin said. "There's not a single land-walkin' vermin who talks like that, an' I can guarantee you that corsairs only get that poetic when they're drunk. No exceptions. An' bloody Hellgates," Victin said, amused, "all I was tryin' ta do was ta tell you ta go another way. You'd think I was tryin' ta stage a revolution with that response. I'd hate ta see how you react ta some'un askin' ta do your laundry." Victin drew his lips back in a dramatic snarl and waved a fist at the air. "'Argh, you stinkin' mutineers, how dare ya try ta steal me undergarments—'"

"Oh, bally enough out of you," Tarquin said, his face burning. "You have no space ta be talkin', _Basil IX_."

Victin said nothing in reply, stoat uncoiling from his slouch to grab his nearby wilted bag he'd just noticed, but there was a bit of compressed rumble in his throat that sounded awfully like a laugh. Tarquin tried to ignore it with the margin of melted dignity and composure he had left and failed immediately. He ended up falling into the same casual slouch as his comrade, watching the stoat go through his bag and mutter a few curses about wet costumes and a ferret. Despite all the strangeness of the situation, much of tension had fizzled away with the last bit of banter, and the atmosphere around the two beasts was practically becoming conversational.

If his father could see him now, Tarquin thought as he shifted his against his own bag behind him, he'd blow out a vein.

"So, the Juska costume…" Tarquin said, watching Victin paw out a few of the wetter props and put them out to dry. Beyond gathering up his sodden supplies and stuffing them back in the other actor's bag, the young hare hadn't touched nor gone through any of his things. Costumes and painstakingly-made props among actors were private; one didn't touch them without any permission. "Tragedy or comedy?"

"Comedy," Victin said, giving a sour look at the remaining buttons on his jacket before he shrugged out of it and tossed it away onto the dirt. "Just finished comin' down the northern Moss river route with the troupe; they decided pullin' _The Otterly Ridiculous Taggerung _would be a good finale."

Tarquin gave a small frown as his brow wrinkled in concentration. "Huh… I don't remember that one. The last play I remember readin' about the Taggerung was _Deyna,_ an' that was hardly a bag of laughs. Decapitation's not a cheerful matter."

"I'm not surprised," Victin said. Looking at all the jumbled soup of props and clothes in his bag, the stoat debated on whether it'd be easier to take all of Oscela's wrath for wet and wrinkled clothes, or all of Oscela's wrath for dried-out and wrinkled clothes. Choices, choices. "It's more of a species isolated play for vermin. I don't think woodlanders would enjoy watchin' a play about how Tagg was a bumblin' idiot an' Gruven was right."

Tarquin gave a huff of amusement, picking a loose grass blade off his paw. "I would be insulted by that, wot, but seein' we've put out _Gingivere the Grandiose,_ I'll just consider it rightful payback."

"For that travesty— 'o anythin' written by Harkin the Poet Mole, for that matter— you're damn right you will," Victin said dryly. "An' you an' the hare general costume?"

"Tragedy," Tarquin said. "Our troupe's headin' along from east to west— you know how it goes, tryin' to make it to the west coast in time for autumn an' winter to hit— an' we've been doin' _Saber and Bloodwrath_ for the past season or so. I've died at least seven times, though the last few have actually been painful, wot." Tarquin winced before he shrugged. "But when can you do when you've got an overenthusiastic otter for your vermin assassin? …_every_ vermin assassin and executioner, for that matter."

"Find some'un less likely ta kill you ta fit the role, for starters," Victin said, grimacing at how he was reminded of Marvelo, "but if you've got limited troupe members, there's not really much of a choice. Our troupe's small enough ta have a Vulpez an' a Slagar in 'un, not to mention a Veil Sixclaws an' a barmaid."

Tarquin stared. "How— how does that even blinkin' work, wot? I know all about role flexibility, but…" There was a son of an infamous warlord renowned for bloodshed and a gruesome end and a giggling tavern maid with fluttering eyelashes played both by one beast. (Hint: one of those things was not like the other.)

"Better than you think it would," Victin said, trying to straighten out the floppy ear on his recovered disguise cap. Now it looked like the hare or rabbit ears had gone through severe head trauma. "Let's just say that Veil doesn't look half bad in a skirt offstage."

Victin made a mental note to skin himself alive before he even hinted to Oscela that he'd made that comment.

"I'll take your word for it," Tarquin said. "There's a fair amount of role sharin' in our troupe too, but—"

Tarquin abruptly stopped, staring at Victin like he was having a cosmic epiphany. Victin still continued to try and straighten out the false hare ear before he gave it up for loss and shoved it back into his bag, but when Tarquin still remained staring and silent, the stoat looked up and waved a paw at the hare's face.

"You still there?"

"I— yes." Tarquin laughed, and he was relieved to hear none of the previous hysteria in it. "I was just thinkin' of how ridiculous this is," Tarquin said, chuckling. "If I tried tellin' my troupe about how I bluffed off a Juska before I ran away screamin', an' then jolly well ran into him in disguise again before we sat down an' had a talk, they'd think I was lyin' about everything."

"Almost everythin'," Victin said, a stealthy grin slipping on his face. "I think they'd believe 'un part of that story." Tarquin gave him a small withering look and crossed his arms.

"You're a blinkin' terrible bein'," he said. Tarquin paused. "…not that you're wrong," he muttered.

Unfortunately, the stoat had a point. The troupe would easily believe in his screaming retreat, but they'd more than likely consider molespeak a graceful form of art before they ever considered Tarquin facing down a Juska, actor or not. (Seeing he blanched at the slightest violence-caused nosebleed and had begun gagging over one of Kenna's antique vase props when Yosef had gotten punched in the face by an angry shrew and sprayed blood all over his muzzle like a busted inkwell, Tarquin had to admit their suspicions were well verified.)

Victin waved a paw in dismissal. "It's not like my own troupe would believe me any different. Hellgates, they'd probably think I had one too many rum shots an' ended up hallucinatin' in a back alley somewhere." There was also the possibility of them believing that the shifty wildcat bartender had slipped him some of that pickled newt vodka, Victin thought, but that was going to remain unmentioned. Stinking suspicious cat.

Tarquin gave a half-shrug with one shoulder, a tilted smile on his face. "So much for tellin' this story later an' gettin' taken seriously— or at least believed. But I suppose it isn't a total loss. This could make one jolly good comedy, wot, presumin' the audience could swallow their disbelief."

The hare blinked when he saw Victin pause momentarily before digging through his bag again. When he found what he wanted, he untangled it from the rest of the costume mess, briefly wiping it on his paw. Tarquin heard another murmured swear about a ferret.

"Alright, hare, my costume manager Oscela is goin' ta kill me for this, but as far as I'm concerned, she bloody didn't go through this mess," Victin said. He reached out an open paw as Tarquin craned his head up in curiosity. The hare's eyes widened at the sight of the bone hoop earring resting in Victin's palm, and the stoat stifled the urge to roll his eyes. Trust woodlanders to not even have bird-bone props.

"Is it—" Tarquin said, voice and reaching paw hesitant like the earring was going to bite his fingers off. Victin popped open the metal clip at the back and demonstratively clicked it onto the base of his ear.

"It's only a snap-on; no drillin' holes necessary," he said, tilting his head so the hare could see the flat clamp. "An' no, it's just bird bone, same as the fang extensions. I didn't slit somebeast's throat in their sleep ta get prop material, if that's what you were thinkin'."

The younger actor gave him a curious look Victin could practically see the genuineness leaking out of. "I didn't think you did."

Victin unclipped the earring. "Good for you, because it's yours. Might as well have something to remember this disaster by an' shove it in your troupe's face." Victin reached out the earring again. This time, eyes still a bit wide, Tarquin took it from him. The stoat thought he saw the hare swallow slightly as he rolled it over in his paw, feeling all the smooth bone joints polished and strung together.

"Thank you," Tarquin said. He rolled the earring in his paw one more time, tentative to put it up in his bag, but the hare finally turned to tuck it away. Victin was caught off guard when the woodlander suddenly straightened up after he'd put it up, long ears and all, an idea sparking through his face.

"I'm such a bally idiot," Tarquin said, turning to dig through his bag. He almost flung out the piece of sodden blueberry tart (which was unfortunately ruined; the inner hare in Tarquin wept) but Tarquin decided that tossing out a piece of wet pastry in the face of somebeast who'd given him a gift wouldn't be the optimal idea. "Now, where is that blinkin' coat—"

Victin watched as Tarquin dug out a still-wet coat from his bag, shaking it out to unfold it. There was a clattering as all the metals on it shook and the built-in shoulder pads bounced up and down like awkward wings. The hare looked significantly smaller and slimmer without the padding and monocle to give him width— hardly like a general.

But he had the medals of one, Tarquin thought, even though they were only imitations. The hare stretched the coat out in front of him and looked through the medals pinned on it. He should've listened to Kenna better. All the stripes, ribbons, and round pins looked near identical to him, and the last thing he wanted to do was give the stoat a medal for taking out a platoon of vermin or cleaning up the mess hall (or one for dying in line of duty.) After browsing through the pins, Tarquin finally picked off a cross-shaped medal with a purple ribbon hanging underneath. He handed it to a puzzled Victin.

"It's not the real thing," Tarquin said, watching Victin stroke a claw over the ribbon as he looked at it, "but it's close enough." Tarquin sheepishly reached a paw up and rubbed the back of his head. "I, um, never did well with identifyin' medals— or gettin' them, for that matter— but I think I can at least remember that one. Purple cross; awarded for showin' great bravery in the face of the enemy. Not sure if it's too fittin' for here, but… well. Kenna won't notice me missin' a medal or two anyway, wot. Generals have far too blinkin' many."

Victin rolled the medal over to see its silver sides and the short pin underneath. The silky ribbon ran through his fingers. Prop or not, it was well made. Tarquin was trying to inconspicuously stuff his general coat away as Victin flipped the medal again and closed his paw around it.

"Thank you… Tarquin."

For Victin, a woodlander's name was a weird sound to hear coming out of his mouth, but it wasn't necessarily bad, for a hare name. Better than Basil P. Fastfoot IX.

Tarquin looked briefly startled before he glanced down at something in his paw and closed up his bag.

"You're welcome… Victin."

Tarquin felt odd to be saying a vermin's name, but not in an unpleasant way. It was a nice name for a stoat. Better than Bloodclaw McFangface.

Despite all the ridiculous, painful, and confusing events that had occurred throughout the day, it was the first time the stoat or hare had said each other's names.

Tarquin glanced down at his paw. He'd fished the Juska earring out while he was putting his coat away. It didn't seem right to leave it in the dark. Sensing the time that was gone due to their detour, Victin Stubfang began to rise to his feet, closing up his satchel and slinging it over his shoulder. He bent his head and pinned the medal to his satchel strap as Tarquin stood, taking his bag with him. The hare neatly clipped the hoop earring to the base of one of his long ears.

Victin was surprised he was putting the earring on, since what he knew of the military Long Patrol showed that they didn't approve of wearing them— especially not on one ear like a skid-row vermin delinquent— but he'd never worn a medal of honor either, Victin thought, looking down at it. Or bluffed off a hare in Juska costume before being dragged down in a hill in hare costume before crashing into a river and being socked in the face. Maybe there was a first time for everything.

"It's been nice meetin' you," Tarquin said, reaching out a paw. "Well, the parts not involvin' mass confusion an' rollin' down a hill, anyway, wot, but that's not important. I am sorry for punchin' you, you know."

"Apology accepted," Victin said, shaking his paw. "An' despite your entire bloody absurd accent imitation an' whatnot, you're not that bad. For a younger actor. You know," Victin said casually, "if you dropped by our troupe sometime, you might actually learn how ta speak vermin properly. The Travelin' Fang Thespians always follow the river trails."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tarquin said releasing his paw as the beasts stepped aside from each other, hare giving him a brief actor's salute. "Dark Forest Gates, the earring's solid proof, but you're probably goin' to have to pay a visit to really convince my troupe this happened, wot. You know how flighty an' undignified some of the other actors get," Tarquin said, keeping a straight face as he apologized. Victin was just as stoic, neither of them dropping their poker faces. "Especially the costume designers… We're the Wanderin' Woodlander Players, if you ever hear the name an' decide to drop by. Just in case, wot."

"I'll make sure ta remember that," Victin said. "…just in case."

The two actors separated, both heading down different trails in sunny Mossflower with (most) of their directional senses cleared up, and Tarquin Fleetfoot and Victin Stubfang managed one last distant wave to each other before the hanging brambles and spread branches swallowed up hare and stoat alike. Most of the birds had resumed their singing again, fluttering from tree to tree— except for a few sour robins, who were still cursing— and inside the woods, there was no Juska warrior nor Long Patrol general lurking in hiding or walking along.

Just a perfectly average and disheveled-looking hare with a bone hoop earring hanging from one ear and an equally average and disheveled-looking stoat with a medal of bravery pinned to his chest.


End file.
